Smile
by SkyeandMax
Summary: "And she smiled." The Uchiha family was a family of subtleties and hidden truths. Drabble, pre- Massacre.


Mikoto smiled.

Smiling was good. Smiling was _nice_. Smiling was commonplace. Smiling kept people from asking why you _weren't_ smiling. Smiling was easy. Smiling was second nature to her, easy as lying, and that had gotten so easy lately.

So she smiled.

According to her mother, smiling told the world that "your life was better than theirs". Smiling kept other people out of her business. Smiling kept other people from asking, asking those pesky little questions that dug into the back of her brain and wreaked havoc with her emotions, those questions that she could not answer not because she did not know the answers but because she should not know the answers.

So she smiled.

She smiled to lie. To lie to her husband, so he wouldn't know what she knew, what she had deciphered from the late night meetings and the whispered plans and his sudden interest in his second child, Sasuke, the child he had largely ignored for the better part of eight years; to lie so he wouldn't know how much this pretense this disgusted her, and how much more repulsive the truth of what he was planning was.

So she smiled.

She smiled to lie to her son, Sasuke, as well, though this lie was not near as convincing as her lie to her husband. He was eight, her little boy, and he could see through her, through her bright countenance and her easy lies. He would flash those big black eyes, those dark irises, up at her and stare. He said nothing. He never did. She wondered how much he knew, how much he had discerned.

So she smiled.

She smiled to talk to her other son. It was funny, truly; the one person the outside world and even her own husband would tell her not to trust was her older son, yet he was the one person she felt she could trust. Her son, Itachi, the child who had murdered his cousin. Itachi, her old child, the child that never was a child. Contrary to popular belief, she knew the truth; she wasn't brainless, and Itachi was her son. There were some things a mother just _knew_, like when her child was sick or when her child had fully recognized his brokenness or when her child had turned into a cold blooded killer.

So she smiled.

Her smile told Itachi many things. It told him she knew what he had done. The omnipresent smile told him she did. It told him she knew what was coming, what was coming from him and what was coming from his father. It told him she didn't care whose plans won.

So she smiled.

And she _didn't_ care whose plans won. Either way, she was dead. Itachi would kill her, leave her pale and lifeless in a pool of her own ill-begotten blood, sick with the smell of death and pain, or her husband would kill her. The war he was planning would claim many causalities. Her conscience told her to be one of them, because she would never live with herself if she didn't, and it would be easier on her little boy if she died as a hero instead of a suicide.

So she smiled.

The end was coming for her. She had accepted that. In fact, she was calm. Wasn't that what shinobi were taught? To be calm no matter what the circumstance? She knew that was what the Uchiha clan had taught her from infancy. Showing the cracks in her composure, the tears she couldn't cry anymore, would be scandalous and unacceptable.

So she smiled.

There was one thing she wanted before she died, one thing she needed, and it was something only her old child could give her. She cornered her elder child in his room, without the protecting aura of his father or little brother. She caught him by himself, where she could attack.

And she smiled.

And she said, "Itachi, you know I love you. You know that's not going to ever change, right?"

And her old child, her child that was never a child, her child that had been forced to become this emotionless killing machine, nodded.

And she smiled.

She breathed the next word, her hope and expectations and worry choking her, keeping the syllable quiet. "Sasuke?"

"Don't worry," he said. His voice was polite, quiet, calm. How many thirteen year olds were so respectful? "You don't have to worry about Sasuke."

That sentence should have worried her. That sentence was a "sneak peek", a preview of the bleakness and darkness and pain and suffering that was ahead, a glimpse of the carefully constructed lies that she had protected and buffered her baby with being destroyed in one swift blow, and a indication of the entirely corrupting and wholly detrimental nature of the beliefs that would come to replace them.

Maybe it did worry her. Perhaps, under it all, she knew what was coming for her baby boy.

But she smiled anyway.

Perhaps, underneath the underneath, it didn't matter. She wouldn't be around to see. She could die happy and blissfully unaware.

She smiled. "Thank you, Itachi." He nodded and grasped her hand lightly, a move uncharacteristic for him. She stroked his long, fine hair with one hand and held his hand captive with another. Most likely it looked awkward; most likely, it looked uncomfortable. It wasn't. It was natural, the first natural thing Mikoto had seen, done, or felt in years. She saw something in his eyes, something uncertain, something unsure.

She smiled. "I'm going to start dinner." Reluctantly, she released the last little comfort she had, pretending not to see the change in her son's face, pretending not to know that _it had started._

She walked out the door and down the hall, pretending not hear him whisper, "I'm sorry", pretending not to hear him withdraw his katana and step behind her.

After all, she was still smiling.

**A/N: No idea where this came from...it just came. So, if you could drop a review, tell me what you think, you know, all that great stuff. Thanks for reading!**


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